Category Archives: Appetizers

Oh, yeah…what else was I supposed to do with the Phyllo I had left over from the Baklava? Last night, we were laying in bed and I was looking through recipes when Ted rolled over and said, “Mmmmm, egg rolls sound so good right now. And thus, the hunt was on to find a recipe that had an awesome filling…after, not too much searching, I found the one I was going to use and alter to my liking (http://www.steamykitchen.com/13029-my-mothers-famous-chinese-egg-rolls-2.html). I chose to use pork, but really any meat would do…chicken, turkey, ground beef, shrimp…and I can only imagine how much healthier these are than traditional deep-fried egg rolls. This is how I made these; but, you could really fill these with your favorite combination of meat and veggies.

Lightly brown the meat in skillet. In the meantime, shred cabbage, carrot, and ginger. I used my food processor and it finely shredded everything and saved so much time…and a few knuckles, I am sure. Add the vegetables to the meat and mix well. Add the cornstarch, sugar, soy, and sesame oil. Turn heat to med-low and cook for about 10 minutes (long enough to soften the veggies and meld the flavors).
Turn the filling mixture out on a cookie sheet and elevate one end to drain any liquid from the filling. I used some pretty lean meat and this step really was not necessary, but I did it anyway, just to make sure. This is a VERY important step because wet filling will create soggy rolls. Just like with the Baklava, we are going to use 3 sheets of Phyllo (with the sheet cut in half width wise). It is still important to brush butter over each sheet; however, we are also going to brush a little bit of milk on each sheet (except the top sheet). The milk will make the sheets stick together so they don’t roll around when you are trying to roll them. Now we are ready to stuff and roll. I used an ice cream scoop (well, two scoops per egg roll)…but my egg rolls were large, obviously you can decide on what size you want yours and adjust accordingly.

Place the filling in the corner and roll from corner, diagonally. Try to roll as tight as possible without breaking the dough.

Consistency, obviously isn’t my strong suit here. When you get to the end, gently brush with a little milk to secure the flap. Place rolls on to a wire rack (I used the racks I have for cooling cookies) over a cookie sheet. Don’t worry, if you don’t have a wire rack, they can be place directly onto the cookie sheet. I just like to use the wire racks as much as possible so there are no soggy (or burnt) bottoms. To make life a little easier, instead of trying to brush the rolls with butter (because we want them to get nice and flaky), I used my “butter flavor” no stick cooking spray. Pop them bad boys into the oven and bake for about 25 minutes…timing will depend on how dark you want them and the size of the roll, so you should probably check them about every 10 minutes.